Temporary flight restriction planned for rocket launch from Virginia

Drone operators are being urged to exercise caution if using their aircraft to view the Antares rocket launch and avoid flying over the public and NASA Wallops Flight Facility property in Virginia on Sunday.

Drones, also called unmanned aerial systems, should stay clear of Wallops Flight Facility, the marsh areas between Wallops Island and the mainland and the Atlantic Ocean east of Wallops Island. A Temporary Flight Restriction and other Special Use Airspace will be activated by the Federal Aviation Administration.  Fines and penalties are applicable and will be enforced, NASA said in a notice posted on their website.

“There will be several thousand people in the area viewing the launch,” the agency said. “Public safety is paramount and drones should not be flown over crowds. The Wallops Range is committed to making sure that the viewing public is safe and that drones do not pose a threat to the success and safety of launch operations.”

The Northrop Grumman Antares rocket will launch at 5:39 p.m. EST from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

The launch may be visible, weather permitting, to residents throughout the mid-Atlantic region and possibly the East Coast of the United States.

This will be Northrop Grumman’s 13th commercial resupply services mission to deliver NASA science investigations, supplies and equipment to the International Space Station.

Antares rocket ready to launch space station cargo ship

An Orbital Sciences Corp. Antares rocket is ready for flight on launch Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Va., liftoff planned for 1:07 p.m. EST on Thursday.

The Antares will launch a Cygnus spacecraft on a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Orbital-1 mission is Orbital Sciences' first contracted cargo delivery flight to the space station for NASA.

Among the cargo aboard Cygnus set to launch to the space station are science experiments, crew provisions, spare parts and other hardware.

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Orbital Sciences launches new cargo ship to space station

NASA commercial space partner Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., successfully launched a Cygnus cargo ship aboard its new Antares rocket at 10:58 a.m. EDT Wednesday from the Mid-AtlanticRegional Spaceport Pad-0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

This is the first time a spacecraft launched from Virginia is blazing a trail toward the International Space Station (ISS).

Traveling 17,500 miles per hour in Earth's orbit, Cygnus is on its way to rendezvous with the ISS on Sunday. The spacecraft will deliver about 1,300 pounds of cargo, including food and clothing, to the Expedition 37 crew aboard the space station. The crew will grapple and attach the capsule using the station's robotic arm.

Wednesday's launch was a test flight for the Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program. The successful completion of the COTS demonstration mission will pave the way for Orbital to conduct eight planned cargo resupply flights to the space station through NASA's $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract with the company. NASA's other cargo resupply provider, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., began flying regular cargo missions to the space station in 2012, following its own COTS demonstration mission.

"Today's launch is the culmination of more than five years' work between the NASA and Orbital teams," said Alan Lindenmoyer, NASA's program manager for commercial crew and cargo.

Over the next several days, Cygnus will perform a series of maneuvers to test and prove its systems are working properly.

The ISS crew is scheduled to capture Cygnus with a robot arm at 7:25 a.m. EDT on Sunday.

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